I think you're over-inflating the effects of automation and down-playing the effects of off-shoring.
I'm pretty sure I'm not.
A major caveat: Research has shown that neither automation nor offshoring have really "killed jobs." Both tend to reduce prices of goods, which benefits consumers. Either way, I do think that some people are getting left behind. So....
In the 1930s, there were around 100,000 employees at The Rouge, Ford's massive factory complex. They cranked out somewhere between 1000 and 2000 autos per day. Today, there are 6,000 employees at The Rouge. They make around 1500 F-150 trucks per day.
Life in automated factories is not stellar, as show with the latest round of onshoring. Unions are shattered, so those benefits -- including higher wages, pensions, protections from firings etc -- are gone. Pay is far less, 1/3 to 1/2 of previous wages; manufacturing wages have fallen 14% since 2003. Many factories are moving to southern states, where wages are lower and labor laws are lax. Some hire temps instead of full-time employees, and temps don't get benefits.
Some of the manufacturing jobs pay better than in the past -- someone has to repair the robots, right? However, those jobs require more skills than you get with a high school degree.
Or, to put all of this another way: The average Mexican factory worker earns $3.25/hour, whereas the US worker earns an average of $20/hour. The only way to make that work is to squeeze at least 5 times more productivity out of the US worker -- and cut wages to the bone.
Manufacturing in 2017 is no longer a route to a decent middle-class life for low-skilled workers.
Another consideration? We attack offshoring because it's mentally easier than thinking about automation. Put simply, blaming China and Mexico (and fat-cat capitalists) for the pain of economic transitions appeals to our tribal mindsets.
Who do you think is working in all those factories in China?
Whose jobs are getting replaced by robots?
China's GDP growth is 7%, and that's based off of manufacturing so this talk of manufacturing not being a valid driver for the economy anymore falls flat.
Egads. That doesn't even start to make sense.
The economy of the US circa 1850 was almost exclusively agricultural. Should the US have forsaken the Industrial Revolution? Should we refuse to import food because once upon a time, agriculture was the backbone of the US economy?
You do know that US manufacturing output is at record highs?
You do know that around 10% of the US labor market is in manufacturing? And that figure has been steadily declining since 1950?
The attachment to manufacturing is nostalgic nonsense, with an increasingly tenuous connection to reality. Manufacturing as a major source of labor has been over for decades. It's time to move on.